Ioannidis, professor in the Department of Informaticsand Telecommunications at the University of Athens.Shouldn't they be among the main items, too?

More difficult, said Mr Moon. One could make a

case for capitalising knowledge assets, but it involved`a particularly onerous, difficult and painful processcalled "activity based" accounting'. Most organisati-ons were `nowhere near that as an approach or disci-pline'.

Digital assets largely comprised metadata derived

from capture and creation tools, business rights, com-missions, accounting data, purchase and licencedetails, modification and use indicators. Mr Moondescribed an `extraordinary' XML-based metadatastandard platform from Adobe called XMP(eXtensible Metadata Platform) that stored metadatain the digital file header, allowing the transfer of file and metadata together from one user system toanother. It had an `aliasing' function allowing incom-patible metadata fields to be synchronised betweenstandards. He enthused: `And as someone from theIT world will know, synchronisation of metadata isthe rat-hole of the universe.'

Within a digital asset could be many versions of

an original `digital master'. From a digitised picturewould come renditions in low, medium and highresolution. Illustrators would use these in page design-ing, the medium resolution for placing and editingan image, the high resolution for printing, and thelow resolution for the Web. Similarly, text versionscould include documents in differing languages or a variety of wording, providing a file with multiplelayers for automatic or dynamic renditions on Webdisplays or just-in-time print functions.

he went on:`I was just at the Tate Modern in London:an exquisite, unbelievable exhibition of Picasso andMatisse. I saw the dialogue between Picasso andMatisse over a 30-year period.They didn't talk, theypainted, and they would send each other paintings.You could see how each affected the other in pro-found and really startling ways, ways you cannot real-ly appreciate until you see the paintings side by side.'

He said that a DAM system would allow the Tate

Modern to print posters rendered dynamically. `So Icould simply go down into the gallery kiosk and say"give me one of those". It could be a straight print-out or it could be turned into a poster with the TateModern logo or maybe with a picture of yourselfsuperimposed over a little corner.'The Web offeredsimilar dynamic sales possibilities to individuals orauthorised re-sellers with no need for huge stockinventories or physical logistical problems.

Some DAMS contained visual search technology,

good for users who did not understand Boolean andsearch argument and for video or DVD searches.Workflow interfaces met the specific requirements ofsystem managers, media creators and editors and,finally, the consumers.

Keep in mind 1.: Mr Moon reminded the experts

that, at some time in the future, institutions maywish to outsource some of the DAMS capabilitysuch as meta-tagging, digitisation or dynamic imagerendering. DAMS technical infrastructure shouldallow these and other possible process changes.

Keep in mind 2.: `The biggest, most difficult part

of digital asset management is change management.How do we facilitate the formation of new beha-viours among individuals and, more importantly, ingroups and institutions not necessarily warm andaccommodating of change?' he warned.